? about using a second power supply

[muell67]

IM thinking of using a second power supply in my mame cabinet so I can hook the perfect 360 joysticks, the lights and some of the fans. My question is can I get a atx power supply to work without being plugged into a motherboard.

[Goz]

Yes you can but you'd have to hook up a switch to short out two wires on the ATX connector.

[Craig]

I thought many ATX PSUs needed a load first to give power to your devices? I would find a cheap $5 AT PSU off eBay.

[muell67]

thanks for the tip on shortng out the #14 wire. When did power supplys start requiring a motherboard to operate? I probably could get a power supply from a old 486 would this work.

[RayB]

thanks for the tip on shortng out the #14 wire. When did power supplys start requiring a motherboard to operate? I probably could get a power supply from a old 486 would this work.

When Pentium 4's came out, "Pentium 4" style power supplies started to appear, that DON'T have an on/off switch on them at all. (Though maybe they appeared even before then...)

[paigeoliver]

Why would you need a second power supply. A single good one will be more than enough. My desktop has six hard drives, a DVDR drive, and about 9 fans all running off a single power supply.

A couple of extra fans and lights will be no problem.

[rdagger]

You might run into problems if the P360's do not share a common ground with your encoder.

[muell67]

Im just worried about how im going to actually hook the p360 to my Ipac. I know there is a 5v pin for the led's but how do I physically attach the wires. should I find some sort of plug.

[paigeoliver]

Im just worried about how im going to actually hook the p360 to my Ipac. I know there is a 5v pin for the led's but how do I physically attach the wires. should I find some sort of plug.

Have you actually SEEN any of this stuff yet?

If so, then I can't believe you are asking this question. This question will answer itself once you look at the stuff.

[JMDickson]

You cannot run a PC powersupply for a long period of time without a load on each rail.  Most supplies will have a 12v and 5v rail with 3.3v regulated off of the 5v rail.  Some more expensive units have 3 seperate rails.  You will need to make sure you are pulling around 10% off each rail to keep the supply stable, and keep it from burning up.

[RayB]

what's a rail?

[muell67]

I have the two p360 here there are two  22 awg wires I know I can ground it with the same common im using for the buttons. I do not have my I pac yet, it is on order and acording to tracking it is in ky so I should get it in the next couple of days. Ive seen pics of it and it looks like the 5v connection is similar to the ide pin conections on a motherboard. Do I need to get a plug to hook into this or can I just solder the p360 to the pin on the Ipac. Ive thought about using a old Ide cable and cutting it down to 10 pins. thought it might be the right size, but im not sure 22awg wire will fit.

[paigeoliver]

Umm, you don't solder at all with an i-pac. Unless they have changed something since the last time I ordered one, the +5 is available as a screw terminal just like everything else.

 

[muell67]

I know all the wires for the buttons and joysticks screw in but I thought there was no screw for the 5v. the picture off of ultimarcs website www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html shows pins right behind the keyboard plugs. I thought this was the 5v connection. I know the opti pac has a 5v screw, but i dont see one on the Ipac

[paigeoliver]

Oh, they have changed it, just steal +5 from an unused power supply connector on your computer. It is the red wire. Just chop open the red wire on one of the hard drive power connectors and run it to the +5 on your joysticks.

[Kobex]

Just as an FYI, the I-pac VE has screw terminals for 5 volts instead of the header.